Cabinet Construction

As I noted in previous posts time has been hard to come by as of late. As much as I would like to do certain things, other things take priority. Such is the case with MAME. Its rare I get an hour or two to myself, let alone two hours to disappear upstairs to the computer. With that said I don't want to stall this project any further. So Ive decided I would move forward in the building and repair of my MAME cabinet. After taking a closer look I noticed the cabinet is in better shape then I thought. The sides will need some minor touch up with auto body filler, the t-moulding is fine. The buttons and joysticks are fine, with the exception of two that have cigarette burns on them. The control panel overlay will need to removed, and the panel itself cleaned and painted. Ive decided to go with a two tone blue paint job. Borrowing inspiration from a Donkey Kong machine, with a twist. Ill do the sides one shade of blue, the front another. Ill leave the bottom black, the coin door will also remain black. Ill remove the heavy duty locks, as the machine is now for home use. The t-moulding will also remain the same, as its in good shape. Ill do a custom marquee & simply paint the control panel.

With the exception of my ROM testing not being completed I'm pretty happy with MAME thus far. Ive got as far as the letter "S" in testing. I think I've got most of the options configured for optimal performance. One the cabinet itself is ready Id like to alter windows so it boots right into MAME. Id also like a way to hide the mouse cursor. I seen the option in MAME, but it didn't seem to work. Id love to just rip through my ROM testing, but I don't know when that will happen. I plan on ordering the IPAC in the next week or so. Reading some other blogs I noticed another hobbyist was building a cabinet. But prior to completing his project he built a test control panel, hooked it via the IPAC and fully tested MAME. I had never thought of that, but it makes so much sense. Mame sure everything works with the controls the way its meant to, then move it into the machine. Since my machine is wired for JAMMA I can simply disconnect the controls, follow the wires and connect them to the IPAC. I'm hoping its as easy as I made it sound! Once that's done I should be in a position to move all the components over to the cabinet.

That's it for now, I'm looking forward to making some serious progress on this. I really like the idea of having a MAME machine. The ability to play most of the games I loved as a kid the way they were meant to played is awesome! I'm also really excited about making this cabinet look as good as I can. Id really like to be done this project and end up with a showpiece. The best part is I really feel I can do it.
Of course Ill post pics and results here on the blog.